Best Budget (Cheap) Motherboards for Gaming PCs

If the CPU is the brain of a computer, then the motherboard is the nervous system. It is responsible for bringing everything together and allowing the CPU and the other components to interact with each other. However, this doesn’t mean it needs to be expensive. In truth, even if you aren’t looking for a budget motherboard, you can still find something great for under $100. In most cases, anything more expensive is going to be wasted unless you intend to spend a mint on your entire machine.

When choosing a motherboard, budget or otherwise, it is all about knowing what features you want, then getting a motherboard to match for the price. Some features to consider include:

Form Factor – This is what size your motherboard is. There is no right size, mostly form factor is for deciding if it will fit in your case or what sized case you will buy for your motherboard.

USB – How many USB ports your MOBO has is completely up to preference, but even with budget boards, you will now want to consider USB 3.0. It doesn’t inflate price much and it prepares your board for the near future of peripheral compatibility will currently enhancing transfer speed.

CPU Compatibility – If you already purchased a CPU, obviously, you need to make sure it is compatible. Typically these days you don’t want to go any lower than FM2+, AM3+, AM3, LGA 1150, or LGA 1151.

Number of Sata and Expansion Slots – How many drives do you want to connect? How many expansion slots do you need for sound or video cards? The bigger the form factor, the more expansion slots it will have. Typically, you won’t ever need more than four expansion slots, and you should plan for at least three SATA ports if you intend to house your OS on a separate solid state as well as have a hard drive and CD drive connected.

RAM Bays – It is widely believed that the more RAM you have, the more efficient your computer will be. However after 16 GB, these days you hit a point of diminishing returns. Around 8 GB is pretty much ideal for anything you need for gaming, but it is still up to preference.

Power Connectors – Your motherboard takes power like the rest of your machine. Be absolutely sure that, if you already have a power supply, it is compatible with your budget motherboard.

Brand – Yes, yes, brand isn’t important, but it kind of is when it comes to the nervous system of your gaming PC that has the potential to fry all your other components. Most of the time you can’t go wrong, but there are brands to avoid like BioStar, Foxconn, or JetWay. Bad reviews are a good indicator on this one.

Top Picks for Best Budget Motherboards for Gaming PCs

As far as Intel LGA 1151 processors go, this is the best board for your budget. As it also uses the H110 chipset, the cheapest of all, it keeps prices down enough to justify the two DIMM slots that can support up to 32 GB of memory. While it doesn’t support much in the way of overclocking and the two front and two rear USB 3.0 ports are practically the bare minimum requirements if the eight USB 2.0 ports that it sports ever go completely obsolete, it does have four SATA ports. It it’s the fanciest of gaming motherboards, but it gets the job done well.

If you are looking for a full ATX motherboard, then this motherboard for under $100 is a real steal. Not only does it feature four DIMM slots for more opportunities to upgrade your RAM as needed, but you also get six SATA ports. This makes the M5A97 a good budget motherboard for those short on cash now, but intend on upgrading their gaming rig in the future since it has the power and ports to support some pretty high end components. You also get six USB 2.0 ports, but only two USB 3.0 ports. So it is not great on that front, but not completely unreasonable for the price.

It is no secret that you want to be wary of anything specific like “gaming” in the actual product title. Usually it is just there to try to get an easy sale from an uninformed consumer, but the MSI 970 is the rare exception. The entire reason that this card can proudly wear the title “gaming” is because it is the best budget card for overclocking.

This AM3 processor supports full overclocking with the OC Genie 4 as well as other features like multiple GPU support, memory that can be taken up to 2133Mhz, audio boost 2.0, and the Killer E2200 Ethernet networking that reduces lag for online play, which is a real gem. However, because it has all these features, don’t be surprised if you find the price fluctuates. Usually it is under $100, but the off-season can see it go up as high as the mid-hundreds.

Ken should have been born a "Stark".His 2 favorite fictional characters of all time are Ned and Tony.Ken lives a life of anguish as his love for video games and all things geek is only surpassed by how horrible he is at playing them.He has the hand/eye coordination of a 41 y/o man matched with a mind of an 18 y/o.His cat's name is John Constantine.